The falling false ceiling had revealed a rectangular, white-painted wooden trap door.
“Bad plaster job,” Bill grumbled. “The whole mess came down at once. Look, the old rope is still there.”
Kurt grabbed Teddy’s hand before she could reach for the twisted rope. He wasn’t certain why. Bad vibes maybe. Besides, the rope had been cut off and was too high to reach without a stepstool. “Let’s get this cleaned up and think about it before we tug that rope. It could be rotted. The stairs could be dangerous, and that could be the reason they covered them.”
“Unhinged stairs,” Teddy muttered in annoyance. “I’ll fetch the broom and see if anyone has a vacuum.”
“We’ve got one in the van,” Bud offered.
“Unload it downstairs, and then take the day off,” Kurt advised. “But let Brenda have a look at you first.”
By the time the workmen had departed, Teddy was eyeing him with one raised eyebrow.
“You look like a demented leprechaun when you do that,” he told her. “I still see your hair as red.”
That appeared to jar her back to normal. She ran her hand through her hair with a rueful grimace. “I should have whacked it off. I’ll start washing it out now that we’re here and staying.”
“You shouldn’t be staying,” he warned, wondering why she’d had to hide her hair but refusing to show interest. “This place is dangerous. I’d put you up at the lodge for a while, but we’re booked weekends. You can still stay the night.”
“Not owing you more, mister,” she countered. “I’m ridding this place of demented ghosts. This place is mine, and no one, corporeal or not, is taking it away.”
That was not what he wanted to hear. He’d been bulldozing this place and rebuilding it in his mind for so long that he thought of it as his, even though it belonged to the family corporation. He set his jaw and didn’t respond to provocation. A woman accustomed to luxury wouldn’t last in the dump for long.
Walker came up carrying the vacuum cleaner. “Why do I feel as if we need to just burn this place down and start over?”
Validated, Kurt pointed at him. “See? Even Walker agrees with me.”
Teddy grabbed the heavy-duty canister and hunted for a wall plug. In that tight t-shirt and jeans, she looked like a pocket-sized rock star. When she straightened and glared at him, the impact went straight to his groin. Kurt grabbed the machine handle, flipped the switch, and began sucking dust rather than speak.
“His cleaning crew has taught him a thing or two,” Walker said with appreciation.
“What do we have to do to test the safety of those stairs?” Teddy studied the wooden frame overhead.
“Any windows in the attic we could try to climb in first?” Kurt asked above the roar of the machine.
“Not that I remember,” Teddy admitted. “It was just a black hole for Christmas decorations. I sneaked up to explore whenever Dad had the stairs down.”
Samantha appeared at the bottom of the stairs and called up, “Amber can’t work and take care of kids for long. Should I take them and the dog somewhere safe while you decide who’s killing himself?”
“Is there anywhere safe?” Teddy called down, sounding dubious.
“Brenda said she could take them to her place. She has a fenced yard and her grandkids’ playroom. And she says Bill and Bud are fine, and if someone would buy Dinah a beer license, they’d be even better.”
“Tell Monty to call the lodge bar and open a tab,” Kurt said, turning off the vacuum. “I don’t think we have the cable hooked up in here so I can’t call him.”
“So I don’t even have a phone?” Teddy asked, glaring at him over the dustpan she was using for the larger chunks of plaster.
“I’ll get you a phone and internet since the place is in the corporation’s name. But I’m raising your rent to cover them.” Kurt held a trash bag for her to dump the plaster in. “We need face masks for this work.”
She handed him the dust pan. “Let me check on the kids and talk to this Brenda person. I’d make a lousy mother, but I try to be a good aunt.” She dashed down the stairs.
“So we go up now?” Walker suggested, his body language showing interest even if his stoic cop demeanor gave away nothing.
“Only if we can do so by not standing under it. Looks like it opens toward the bathroom and not the stairs.” Kurt looked for the stepladder that he’d seen earlier. Finding it, he set it up in the bathroom doorway.
“You’re not doing anything up there without me,” Teddy called from below. “I can practically hear your wheels turning. Give me a minute.”
“She’s kinda spooky,” Walker said, peering down at the shop area. “The women are gathering down there, nattering like birds. How can she hear us?”
“She probably has the place bugged,” Kurt said, only half jesting. He scanned the walls and ceiling looking for wires, but they’d already done that. If there were wires, they were in the walls.
Feeling like a voyeur snooping around, Kurt looked for anything that he could use to knot on the stair rope—until he heard steps on the stairs and couldn’t resist watching Teddy.
“This won’t help if the rope is rotten, but it’s all I’ve got.” Teddy emerged from the stairwell carrying a bungee cord for securing suitcases.
“Good score.” Kurt would admire her mind-reading ability if he wasn’t so irritated at her interference. But she was living here, and he wasn’t her boss, so he had no authority. He hated that.
As he took the cord from her, she muttered “Control freak,” apparently reading his mind again.
Kurt ignored the complaint and climbed up to see if he could fasten the cord directly to the stairs. But the rope went through a hole and the ladder wasn’t tall enough. Walker sensibly stood to one side as Kurt knotted the two cords together. Teddy stood at the bottom of the stepladder, watching.
“If the ghost shoves me, I’ll land on you,” he said in frustration, testing his knot.
“Just making sure you’re a good Boy Scout and can handle that knot,” she said cheerfully, stepping aside to lean against the wall of the tiny bathroom.
She was relentlessly cheerful, even when covered in plaster dust. Kurt wanted to add that to his list of complaints but knew he was being unreasonable. Her defiance was just getting under his skin.
“If there’s any chance of a crime scene, maybe I should go up first,” Walker suggested.
“So you can sue me when this ladder gives out or the door falls on your head?” Kurt asked. “I’m thinking we ought to turn the place into a Halloween spook house.”
“The whole town,” Teddy reminded him of her suggestion.
“We’re blamed lucky Valdis isn’t here, howling about evil spirits.” Walker glanced down the stairs as the noise level rose below.
“Valdis?” Teddy raised those evocative painted-black eyebrows.
“Our resident death goddess, Sam’s aunt. The fact that she’s not around says we don’t have to worry about dead bodies,” Walker explained.
“Or that she’s busy cooking up trouble on the Ingersson land and isn’t here to howl,” Kurt corrected, still resentful that his condo development was stalled until the court decided whether he or Valdis and Sam owned the farm. His father’s fraud and subsequent death had left a lot of screwed up property. “She and Daisy have been up there all week sending smoke signals.”
Impatiently, Teddy stood at the bottom of the ladder. “There is no crime scene in my house. Quit stalling. Want me to go first? She doesn’t mind me.”
“There is no she to it. I’m here, it’s my house.” Kurt knew he was growling like a dog with a bone, but he was fighting a lot of inner demons, the condo snafu being only one of them. This damned door was his. He tested the knot with a yank, watched in satisfaction as the cord tightened. He tugged a little harder. The door didn’t budge.
“Would they have nailed it shut?” Teddy asked with worry.
“It’s wood. Wood dries out or wicks moisture and
warps. We may need a jig saw to shave off the edges.” Kurt wrapped the rope around his hand and applied steady pressure.
“The man knows his tools,” Walker crowed.
“A man of many facets,” Teddy agreed. “Let me help pull. I don’t mind if your butt lands on my face.”
Kurt’s mind instantly landed in the gutter. “So you can bite me?” he countered, keeping his cool.
With the rope wrapped around both fists, he increased the amount of weight he put into the tug by stepping down a rung of the stool. He wanted to feel any give and have time to shout a warning.
“How’s it going up here?” Samantha joined Walker at the top of the stairs. “The ladies are smudging the shop again. They say the spirits are restless, and I think I hear Valdis wailing in the hills.”
“No howls, no wails, no shoves,” Teddy called to her from around Kurt.
The attic stairs plunged down without warning.
Kurt released the rope as he fell backward past the last step. He shoved Teddy into the bathroom, out of reach of the wooden rails falling down. A dark hole gaped above—from which a cloud of red and blue sparkles billowed.
Shock engulfed them as they watched the air turn purple and twinkle like pixie dust.
“Evil!” Teddy and Sam shouted in unison.
Kurt slammed the bathroom door on the weird dust, trapping him in with Teddy in the small area. Outside, he heard the other bedroom door bang shut as Walker did the same with Sam.
In the faint light from the small window, he could make out Teddy hastily running water in the sink. She handed him soap. “Scrub,” she demanded. “That stuff feels lethal.”
“Fetching toxic clean-up,” Walker shouted, evidently daring pixie dust to open his door. “Don’t leave that room. I think you caught the worst of it. I want to test this stuff.”
“It’s probably hallucinogens,” Sam called, sounding almost gleeful. “Can we have an orgy while waiting for clean-up?”
Teddy didn’t chuckle at the byplay from the hall. Kurt stuck his hands in the running water and accepted the soap. “Evil?” he asked in a low voice while more voices seeped through the thin panel.
“Bad vibrations,” she muttered without explanation. “Pretty though.” She admired the pattern of red and blue on her shirt.
“I doubt there’s any manual for cleaning up evil, but I have basic protective gear in my car,” Walker called through the panel. “We’re going to try to clean up as much of this dust out here as we can without tracking it downstairs, just in case there are toxins involved. Most of it flew toward you.”
“Like a whirlwind,” Sam added. “You sucked it right in. I think our poltergeist doesn’t like you Uncle Kurt.”
“Quit calling me uncle,” Kurt grumbled. “You make me feel a hundred years old. And we’ll all feel like fools if this is just Christmas decoration dust.”
A vacuum roared on the other side.
“It’s not glitter,” Teddy said, looking more grim than he’d ever seen her. “This is more like glass or crystal.”
“And you should know why?” Kurt had put two and two together and figured he knew, but he wanted to see how long she would keep up the disguise.
“You’re rich enough to know my designs,” she said, piercing him with a glare. “You know my name. Work it out.”
“Theodosia Devine Designs,” he said in satisfaction. “I bought my fiancée one of your bracelets after she insisted no one can live without one.”
“Let me guess.” She dashed soap from her face and wiped it with a towel as she spoke. “She left you right after that.”
Shocked, Kurt turned off the faucet with his elbow. “What, you jinx your jewelry?”
She shrugged. “Not exactly. But the crystals I use have power. They tend to bring out true character or open eyes to illusions or act as a kind of truth serum. They’re disruptive.”
Hands dripping, Kurt stared rather than take the towel she offered. Before he could find an adequate response, a new voice carried through the door—Cassandra.
“The dust is embedded with. . . negativity,” Cass called through the door.
“She means evil,” Teddy whispered. “She’s trying to spare our delicate sensibilities.”
Kurt reached for the door, fed up with the nonsense after that last low blow. Truth serum? Give him a break. Teddy grasped his hand and shook her head. Her touch cooled his temper a few degrees.
“We can’t let the dust on your clothes spread,” Cass said from the other side. “We’re gathering fresh ones. We’ll give them to you in a plastic bag you can use to deposit the dirty ones in. If the shower works, I’d advise you to use it to scrub your hair.”
“I can’t believe you said that,” Teddy called back. “You want me to shower with Kurt?”
“We all make sacrifices,” Cass said dryly.
“What’s Walker doing about the attic?” Kurt demanded, trying hard not to think about Teddy naked in the shower.
“I have Monty calling in clean-up for possible toxins,” Walker responded. “I want all the dust upstairs and down vacuumed out professionally before anyone tries those stairs.”
“I told him we’d all turn into purple unicorns if he isn’t careful,” Sam called.
“You don’t believe that crap. You’re just making Cass happy,” Walker argued.
Kurt tuned out the lovers’ spat in the hall to concentrate on Teddy, who was studying her purple-dusted hair in the mirror rather than look at him.
“I don’t believe in that crystal power stuff,” Kurt asserted. “Kylie left me because I’m non-communicative and taciturn, and I didn’t pay enough attention to her.”
“Women don’t leave men who buy them expensive jewelry. Just putting her up in a pricey house is attention enough,” she pointed out. “And I’d bet good money you did that too. The crystal made her realize money isn’t enough. She wanted love.”
Even lower blow.
“All San Francisco real estate is expensive. She wasn’t poor.” Kurt thought back to that painful time. Had Kylie actually seemed to regret breaking up with him? Nah, that was just Teddy turning his head around backwards. Women could do that to a man if he wasn’t careful. Kylie had just wanted a man on her arm every time she went out, and he didn’t spend enough time in the city to be there for her. He knew his faults.
Teddy shrugged. “Have it your way. But the crystals I mix with my gems come from a supply my parents accumulated up here. It took me a long time before I realized they had any effect, so I don’t expect you to get it.”
“Truth-telling doesn’t sound evil.” Kurt relaxed a little now that she was showing sense.
“My fiancé emptied my bank account and took my box of precious stones after I made our engagement rings using embedded crystals. A high price to pay to learn the truth about him.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if men stealing from her was just another day on the planet.
Kurt wasn’t certain how to handle that underhanded emotional lob. He focused on the financial end, the only part that made sense. “Bet that set you back a while.”
She shot him another one of those fiery topaz glares. “In more ways than one.”
Ouch. He could feel that shot—she wasn’t trusting anyone, particularly of the male variety. Kurt felt the same about women, so that made them even, in a stone-cold way.
She took off her shoes and pulled aside the shower curtain just as someone knocked on the door.
“Laundry delivery,” Walker announced. “Sam and I get the next round. Cass won’t allow us downstairs.”
Kurt opened the door a crack and took the laundry bag handed to him. “You realize this is all a ridiculous waste of time?”
“Better safe than sorry.” Walker closed the door.
Teddy emptied the bag, sorting their clothes and fresh towels on the closed commode. “Any more truths you want to hear?”
When he didn’t reply, she stepped barefoot into the shower, pulled the curtain, and began dropping dusty
clothes outside the tub.
Kurt watched in stunned silence as she casually stripped that curvaceous figure on the other side of a nearly transparent sheet of vinyl.
“I don’t need crystal to sense lust,” she called. “The feeling is reciprocal, so let’s stay far, far away from each other after this, okay?”
Reciprocal? Kurt didn’t need to be told twice. He pried off his shoes and unfastened his jeans as the water came on.
Eight
June 26: afternoon
* * *
“Who knew you hid all that under suits and ties?” Teddy said, stunned by the taut abs and firm pecs of her landlord as Kurt joined her in the tub, already half-aroused. Truth serum, indeed, this blasted pixie dust had a lot to account for.
She wasn’t shocked that he’d taken up her half-assed offer. She’d known she was taunting a tiger. Her feelings were too complex to sort. She simply reacted as any sane woman would when confronted with gorgeous muscled male animal. She stepped into his arms and enjoyed the power of her femininity as he growled in appreciation and his erection lengthened against her belly.
He gripped her buttocks and lifted her so their mouths meshed while the water cascaded over their skin. Kurt Kennedy was no weak desk jockey. The man must work out his frustration in a heavy duty gym. And his mouth searing hers was akin to heaven and seemed the most normal, reassuring experience she’d had in weeks.
Teddy dug her fingers into Kurt’s thick hair and gave up thinking. His kiss heated her to the core, stripped her of doubt, built desire into a bonfire no amount of water could douse.
He pushed her up against the tile wall so he could cup her breasts. His groan of pleasure was sufficiently satisfying for her to lift her leg and circle his back. She had to bite her lip to keep from shrieking when he snagged the grab bar and leaned over to suck her nipple.
“Truth,” he muttered, just before sliding his hand between her legs and driving her out of her mind.
Topaz Dreams Page 7
